Peach Garden
by Jircniv
Summary: In the midst of a growing civil war, Crown Prince Yuuya finds himself caught in the politics and ambitions of mythical beings he's only ever heard of in fairy tales. [Yuuya/Yuugo, Yuuya/Yuuto, Yuuya/Yuuri. Fantasy AU.]
1. 春天

**Notes**

This is my personal pet project that I've been working on for a while, and I'm really excited to show you Peach Garden! It was originally prose practice that got out of hand...

It's set in (fantasy) Ancient China and follows Yuuya's adventures through a growing civil war in his country, and the mythical beasts that he encounters on the way.

 **This is cross-posted from AO3** (I am AO3 user mizael). The story on AO3 also includes _art_ , so I encourage everyone to find the AO3 link on my profile and go check them out! This is also mainly the reason why I don't delve too much into description of characters; there is already art.

* * *

 **春天**

Spring comes in a soft frenzy of color, a sudden blossoming of reds and pinks and blues, where the whole world is smothered in gentle petal caresses and cotton sceneries, warm forests and living gardens. It's around this time of year when they pick up their winter-woven wicker baskets and trot along the gardens, inspecting fruit on trees for those ready to be picked, eaten, and devoured for that is all the purpose they serve. They'll pluck them from the bushes, each berry or hanging fruit picked too early for their time. That's fine, they say, they'll last longer.

There is always one tree they don't touch in their routine, tucked in the center of their garden like a masterpiece on display, and when spring comes it's a fusion of pastel pink and glutted green. It's the peach tree, their _only_ peach tree, and instead of tearing fruit from its branches like hungry wolves on fallen elk, they bring out a blanket and place it on grass underneath. When the fruit falls naturally from their branches, they'll go and pick it up, and place it in a separate pile from the rest.

"It's so that we ensure the peaches are fully ripe and juicy," his mother says when he asks, braiding locks of red under her fingers, weaving patterns like the wickers. Sometimes she adds in his tufts of green, like he's some sort of twisted colorway of the peach tree. "The blanket prevents them from cracking."

"Does it matter?" he remembers adding as they watch the falling petals in the garden, the lone peach tree in the center surrounded by soft fluffs of red and white. The other trees have been stripped bare, the bushes have been cleaned, and the only spots of edible color are the smaller ones left behind, deemed not worthy of picking. "Why can't we take them now?"

"They say that if you pick a peach tree too early, it's an invitation to misfortune," she hums. His mother finishes braiding the hair in her hands and pushes it out onto his chest, where it hangs awkwardly over his shoulder.

He huffs at her explanation, cheeks rounded with air like the child he is. "But I want to eat peaches, mom."

"In due time," she leans down to kiss his hair. They stay a little while more on their perch under one of the numerous red canopies dotting the lake. The blossoms of other trees fall gently into the water, where they float peacefully in the invisible current, until the water weighs too much and they drown.

"When will they be ripe?"

His mother hums again. "In a few weeks, hopefully," she says. He makes another whine but she shushes him with another kiss, and then a chuckle. "Good things come to those that wait, Yuuya."

He remembers his eyes shifting over to the tree, staring hopefully for one of its fruits to drop, but the scenery does not change and he does not see what he wants to. Instead, a faint wind blew, rustling the leaves and the trees until his mother commented on the weather and went to fetch blankets for them both. He was left there, under the red canopy, red like his hair, hands gripping the edge of the railing as he waited with baited breath for one of the peaches to drop.

"It's bad luck if they drop early," his mother adds when she gets back, a lack of blankets in her arms. She tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and gestures for him to stand up. "And besides that, it's going to rain soon. We have to get back inside the palace."

"That can't be right," he stands up anyway, the red and white silks around him dropping to the floor in a flourish as he ascends. "The sky's still clear."

"The wind blows rain clouds," she echoes with a smile. Yuuya is ushered from the garden by his mother until they're just about out of the cement bridge on the lake. She stops then, looks back with a worried face, eyebrows knit together. "I think I forgot my hairpin there."

"I'll get it for you," Yuuya volunteers, and she laughs.

She pats him gently on the back in the direction of where they came from. "Well then, I won't stop you," her eyes dart to the sky, and then the blowing leaves, and hums an approval. "It won't rain for another ten minutes, but be quick about it."

Yuuya treks off back to the section of the lake they stayed at and his eyes light up as he sees the hairpin resting on one of the cushions they had the servants bring outside. He's over in two steps, body bent over to pick it up, and then set to leave when the wind picks up again, blowing the long silks of his sleeves into his face. Yuuya blanches, and swats them away, but the wind blows the hairpin out of his hands until it knocks with a loud _clang_ against one of the poles and drops onto the ground.

He goes over to pick it up again, huffing. "Aaah," he sighs. He twirls the perfect gold pin in his hand, laiden with emeralds and rubies like his hair. His mother rarely wears red. "But it's pretty."

Another gust of wind blows his flowing hanfu all over and Yuuya pouts as his vision is obscured by soft red and whites again. This time, he just waits for the wind to settle until he can push his hair from his face and smooth out the rest of his clothes. They are unnecessarily expensive, just a token to his status as Prince, but Yuuya doesn't mind the multiple layers he has to put on everyday when he's seen the work that goes into them.

"Right, hairpin," he looks down at his hands, but the pin is gone. A thorough search of the nearby area doesn't reveal anything remotely resembling his mother's gold hairpin. Yuuya frowns, tries to upturn the cushions again but comes back with empty space and empty hands. "Mom's gonna kill me."

The air breathes a quiet breeze in reply, and he huffs. "It's your fault," he accuses the blowing wind. The wind just picks up again, makes the pillars around him howl in a mocking laughter. Yuuya rolls his eyes, but accepts his fate. "I just have to go and tell mom, then."

He gives one last halting look at the peach tree across the way, bundles of red and white fabric in his hands so that he doesn't trip over his flowing robes. He doesn't remember why he had stood there for a while, staring back at the pink and green tree, as if hoping and waiting for one good thing to happen, for the peaches to drop.

He had sighed and turned around to go back, and understandably his mother had been disappointed, but she told him that it was fine, she could get another one. They trekked back to the palace together, hand in hand, and took shelter when the rain hit as she said it would. And then they'd had dinner together, watching the rain pour from their rooms in the height of luxury.

When Yuuya went to sleep that night, he looked out towards the peach tree again, now farther away than his view from the lake.

He remembers squinting, leaning out the second floor of the palace to check for a dropped peach, but nothing was on the blankets underneath. He'd sighed, pouted, grumbled, but shed his dressy hanfu and went to sleep.

(In the morning, he was greeted with a peach on the ground, split in two.)

* * *

 **End Notes**

The first two chapters will be uploaded at once. The third chapter will be uploaded anywhere between two weeks to a month, depending on my mood and forgetfulness. The version you see here on FFN will always be behind the one on my AO3.

Please leave a review if you liked it! I'm mostly cross-posting because I'm hoping to get more readers.

I would really appreciate your feedback~


	2. 缘分

**Notes**

Uploaded at the same time as the prologue.

* * *

 **缘分**

They bury his father's body in the last days of spring, when the flowers have stopped blooming and the trees stopped growing and the world freezes in its picture perfect state: idyllic and peaceful, quiet and serene. They bury his father's body in a tomb with one thousand terracotta soldiers and a road paved with the words of his promises in each stone. They bury his father's body in a large, empty mausoleum befitting of an emperor but not of Yuushou, all bright smiles and laughter and closeness and claustrophilia.

His mother doesn't cry at the funeral procession, garbed in nothing but pure white robes with fleeting streaks of red—her tailor said it was a homage, Youko said it was for comfort. She only follows behind the white cotton soldiers with her white silk veil, white marble coffin and white funeral wear. They parade his father's body around the city, businesses stopped in their mourning, passersby caught in grief, and even when the whole city sheds tears for Yuushou's passing and the heavens pour as well, his mother looks ahead and doesn't let a single drop of water escape from her eyes.

Later, when all is said and done and the coffin is buried beneath inch after inch of dirt with his terracotta army, Youko will retreat to the room they once shared and weep. She will feel the empty press of his bed, bury her face in the pillow he once used, and mourn the early departure of his passing. In the morning, her maids will exchange her tear—stained white for her imperial red, and no one but Yuuya will know of the grief that hides behind her eyes.

(She is the empress, and she cannot cry.)

Yuuya is wretched from his carefree days like a fish from water—he is dragged from his world with all the force of a fisherman on the hunt to feed his family, calloused hands pulling at him until he flies out of the lake. He flounders in the wake of his father's work, his days spent in court with sneering politicians and leering officials, all of them bent on sabotaging him before he even gets off the ground. His mother works her days to pick up the affairs his father left behind until they can only see each other at the end of the work week, and even then for only a few sparing hours.

Youko does not throw herself into her work in her grief. Instead, she takes it all in stride and toils to the best of her ability, working day and night not to forget but to _remember_. After a while Yuuya sees that overcast cloud fade from her eyes, and they greet each other with smiles and kisses and bright laughter like his father would have wanted. They are stronger than that, his mother tells him. Much stronger. They are made of the marble his father sleeps in, born with souls of dying dragons desperate to live again. Through sheer will alone, they survive.

Yuuya keeps this in mind when he enters court every day, head held high with a smile like the sun, for he is the Crown Prince of this country and they will not break him. He walks in with a graceful flourish of his silks, all the posture that a Prince should have, and yet he moves with a boundless happiness that astounds the officials around him. Yuuya is strong like the quaking mountains and only millenias of rain will wash away his resolve.

When the nobles bark at him, he smiles and forgives them for their rudeness. When the politicians sneer at him, he laughs and waves them off for their ignorance. When the officials rage over a child barely prepared for rulership, he shakes his head and tells them politely that he is already seventeen, and he is far from a child. Every movement made to incite him is taken with a smile and a laugh, the iron will of an optimistic child stays in his eyes. Yuuya sits with his back straight against the seat at the head of the table, where his father used to dwell, and rules from his perch.

Beneath the sunny exterior, however, Yuuya wants to break down like his mother did. He wants to wail into the court that he is only seventeen and already the world has forsaken him. He wants to wail into the empty air that he is not yet fit to rule anyone or anything, when his brain has not even finished developing, when his life experience of seventeen years cannot account for all of his country. But Yuuya doesn't say this, doesn't show that he's anything but ready, and instead still sits at the head of the table every day when he comes into court.

("Even if you feel like crying, you must smile.")

The peach tree taunts him with its hanging fruit when he visits, the branches stuck still in its picturesque state. Yuuya finds himself under the tree when he needs time to himself, when the pressures of court are too much and only the lone peach tree in the center of the royal gardens can help soothe him. No one comes by, no one visits, no one is _allowed_ because these are the royal gardens, and only royalty may enter.

Royalty, like—

He finds a beast beneath the tree, sleeping and breathing, white and blue fur fading into white and blue feathers on tucked wings. Bioluminescent horns curve from its deer—like head, two sets of blue—tinted ears on each side of its skull. Yuuya forgets to breathe when he chances upon it, regal in its slumber, snow white head buried under purple—blue hooves. It radiates an aura even from where he stands a ways away, hidden by the greenery of the plants around him, where the red of his silks become the red of fruit. It is a godlike aura, powerful and absolute, but gentle and merciful nonetheless.

Yuuya steps out from behind the plants and starts breathing again. The beast slumbers on underneath the peach tree, oblivious to his presence, and Yuuya wonders if it would be alright to get closer—to observe, to admire, to possibly touch—but he doesn't linger too long on it. He walks forward in small steps, careful of the way the grass crunches beneath his feet, as if the smallest sound would awaken the beast.

He gets close enough to see the scalelike texture on the beast's horns, straight and glowing like electric circuits. Yuuya stops breathing again, if only to stay quiet, and observes the beast from his three feet of distance. It is beautiful, regal, majestic, everything that everyone expects Yuuya to be is embodied within this slumbering creature.

"Amazing," he whispers under his breath, but the peace has been disturbed.

The beast stirs.

It first shakes with a low rumble of discontent bubbling at the back of its throat, vibrating through its body in waves. The creature raises its head and blinks away the sleep from its bleary electric blue eyes, the color of a time that Yuuya has not seen before but the creature holds. And then it stands, hoof upon hoof, until Yuuya sees in all its majesty a mythical beast that towers over him with its four legs and bulky body, outstretched wings the size of humans.

"Hello?" he tries, scooting back to give it room, but the beast roars.

Its eyes catch sight of Yuuya and suddenly the wind howls with the fierce rap of its wings, like a miniature tornado has begun to sweep the area. Yuuya gasps and throws his hands over his head, ducks, rolls, and covers as best he can. The beast cries a note of surprise, startled, and then Yuuya hears the loud beat of hooves on the ground, wings flapping, wind roaring, and then silence.

The world stops, the wind quiets, the plants still.

Yuuya is left alone under the peach tree, surrounded on all sides by ripe fruit on the ground because the beast had knocked them all down in its fright.

The peaches are cracked.

* * *

Geometric patterned sunlight in tiny shapes of squares and rectangles spill onto his floor. A breeze rushes in and lifts the edges of the papers on his desk, as if beckoning them follow the wind back outside, but they are trapped underneath the large red paperweight in the shape of a bird—a fiery phoenix. A gift from an official's son, made to woo Yuuya's favor (and probably his feelings).

Sunny days are meant to be spent outside, basking in the rays of the heavens as he enjoys the peaceful and fleeting beauty of the nature around him. There's something poetic to be said about the trees, the birds, the flowers—something that compares the charm of the plant life to human life, something about human roots and passion, about sedentary lifestyles and serendipity. There's probably even more to be said of the still waters of the lake, the abundance of koi in the ripples, the tiny currents they create with a flick of their tail.

Yuuya wonders if there's anything to be said about the beast.

"It sounds like a celestial being," there's a ruffle of fabric, and then warm, dark hands are on his collar. Masumi's coal black hair comes into view, her red eyes boring straight into his naked frame. "You've grown a couple centimeters. We might need to make new hanfu for you."

"Don't sound so surprised," Yuuya draws his lips into a pout. "I'm capable of growing too."

"Of course," Masumi pulls a large swath of red silk from a nearby table and presses it against his chest. She tells him to hold a portion of it to his neck, and he does. She wraps a measuring tape around his waist and pulls. "Congratulations, your waist grew three centimeters."

" _Ow_ ," Yuuya feels the wind go from his lungs as Masumi pulls the measure tighter. "Masumiii…!"

"Shush," she swats his hands away and moves the strip of marked silk up to his chest. "Four centimeters. Even with all this growth you still have such a small body."

" _Hey!_ " Masumi releases him. Yuuya hurriedly steps off the tiny stool she had him stand on and goes to put his clothes back on. "I'm not small, I just… have a late growth spurt."

"Uh—huh," she rolls her eyes. "Eat more meat. At this rate, the country might have a king that's the size of a child and probably has the brain of one, too."

"Masumi!"

She chuckles. "I'm teasing, Yuuya."

Yuuya puffs his cheeks at her, much to Masumi's amusement.

Masumi calls in the servants with a firm clap and tells them to take her equipment and materials out; she doesn't need them anymore. They bow once at Masumi, twice at Yuuya, and then get to packing up the layout of different colored silks on the table, the length of measuring tape, the red handled scissors, the spindles of thread that lay innocently on the wood. Masumi takes the needles herself, gives extra care to place each one in a separate compartment in her box. Yuuya sees the detailed engraving on each one, and wonders if they were gifts from someone precious, with the way Masumi always holds them close to her.

When all is packed, the servants take the various boxes from the room at Masumi's word and excuse themselves afterward.

"I'll be back in a month with new clothes," she tells him when he finally manages to come out of his musings. Her earrings jingle with every movement of her head—vibrant rubies like the color of her eyes. Her father is a jeweler, Yuuya remembers.

"Wait," he reaches out and wraps his fingers around the sheer blue fabric of her coat, of which she wears glowing yellow silk underneath. "Don't leave yet."

Masumi blinks. "Why?"

"That beast, you said it was celestial," Yuuya releases her coat and coughs into his hand, sheepish. "I just… do you know what it is?"

"Not really," she knits her brows and frowns. "I've heard rumors, though. There's probably a book in the archive if you want to look it up."

"But the archive is so far away," Yuuya pouts again. "And boring."

"Honestly," Masumi shakes her head with a sigh, though a smile plays on her lips. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"A name would be nice."

"But I don't know _for sure_ , Yuuya."

" _Masumiiii_ —"

"Oh, alright. I think it's called a Bai Ze."

* * *

The peach tree is empty when he goes to visit again.

Yuuya reaches out and presses his hands against the trunk of beautiful black bark of the tree, fingers scraping the indents and ridges in the wood. The court has a day off today, something about family emergencies, about drought, about famine, about a part of the country he should care about but doesn't, too caught up in the majesty of the beast he saw only a week ago. He wonders if that makes him a bad prince, if the beast does not want to see him because of his apathy—he wouldn't want to see himself either.

He smiles sadly to himself. When did life lose so much meaning to him? Did the presence of the unknown really shake him more than the woes of his people? Perhaps four months ago, he would have cared more, would have helped his father sort out the panic of drought, would have sent out palace reserves to ease their pain.

But now?

Yuuya waits the whole day under the tree: sometimes he sits, sometimes he stands, but mostly he wallows in his self—pity, caught in the troubles and grieving of his own mind. People are starving, his conscience tells him, starving and dying. Do something, Yuuya. You have the power. You are a Prince.

 _"_ _Even if you feel like crying, you must smile."_

The sudden thought of his father's words knocks him off his feet, and Yuuya falls to the ground with a yelp. His red eyes stare at the dusk above him, a mix of pastel pinks, oranges, reds, and purples. They blend like the silks Masumi works with, her hands the black of the sky, her needles the burning stars. They blink down at him with their infinite beauty, infinite light, and he truly feels like an ant in the playground of the heavens.

"But sometimes it's good to cry."

The sound of another voice snaps him out of his reverie, and Yuuya is quick to push himself onto his elbows to try and find the source, but all he sees is a sliver of white between the trees. It's gone as soon as he blinks, and he wonders if that was a figment of his tired imagination.

"Your Majesty!" one of the maids come running up to him. She bows once when she reaches the base of the tree and does not dare to get any closer. "Your Majesty, I'm sorry to interrupt, but her Imperial Highness has requested you to go and eat dinner with her."

His mother, his mind tells him. "Oh, okay."

He gets off the grass and brushes off the white silk of his robes with an absent—minded sweep of his hands. The servant waits patiently for him to collect his thoughts when he looks back to the peach tree and its empty branches. They're supposed to be full, he muses, if he hadn't startled the beast in its slumber.

He follows the servant back to the safety of the palace buildings and its tall red walls. Yuuya chances a glance back to the tree when he reaches the doors, and sees a spot of white in the same place he stood only moments ago.

"Wait," he turns around and immediately runs back over. "Wait!"

The maid cries for him to come back, Your Majesty, _please_ , but Yuuya doesn't hear her anymore. His feet carry him back to the peach tree, back to the beast he knows he saw, but when he arrives he feels nothing but the cool wind on his flushed cheeks, the promise of something that keeps eluding him.

"Your Majesty," the maid is out of breath when she catches up to him. "Your Majesty, is something wrong? I can call the guards—"

The breeze teases him with a laugh; the leaves of the peach tree whistle with the draft. _There is nothing here_.

"It's alright," he finally says. "It's nothing. Let's go back."

He sees a blur of white in the trees, the judgement of the gods on his frame. It feels like electric blue, sharp and fierce, piercing his very core. Yuuya feels as if the gaze tears him apart, as if the beast planned to rip him limb from limb until he is a hopeless mess of blood and gore on the floor, judgement received in the pieces of his body.

He stops.

"Your Majesty?"

"I…" his throat feels dry. He suddenly yearns for the plucked peaches of the tree behind him, wants to bite into a fresh fruit and feel the juice stream down his chin. "Do we have peaches?"

"Of course, Your Majesty," the maid looks confused. "They're in storage."

"Take them out," he swallows. His hands feel clammy. "We can… we have to send them down to the province in the south."

"Your Majesty?"

"They have a drought," the words spill from his lips like a torrent of water, like bile rising in his throat that threatens to overflow. "They're in a famine. They need food and, the peaches are—they're fresh—"

"Crown Prince Yuuya—"

"They're fresh," he repeats. "We have more things. We have wheat and rice. Send that down too. Wheat and rice and peaches."

The gaze lifts, and Yuuya feels the breath re—enter his lungs.

It approves.

 _The beast approves_.

* * *

His mother smiles at him when he tells her that he took food out of the royal storage to send down south. She laughs and kisses him firmly on the cheeks as if he were a child again and Yuuya whines, _mooom_ , but she's proud. She's so proud, she tells him, so proud that he took action and did what was right. Yuuya flushes in embarrassment, tells her it wasn't much, please stop kissing me like I'm a child, _mom please_ , and she laughs again.

"Alright, alright," she rolls her eyes but the smile stays on her lips. "But you're taking steps now, aren't you, Yuuya?"

"I guess," he still feels that gaze on his body. It lingers.

"That's more than anyone else," she beams. Youko claps twice and the servants off to the side step up at her command. "Tonight, we'll dine with only essentials. Rice, and pork, and beans. Nothing else."

Somehow it still seems like a feast.

* * *

 _Bai Ze are creatures created from the hands of the gods themselves, said to contain their vast knowledge of the world and all the living beings in it. They only appear on earth in the era of wise, virtuous kings to bestow knowledge._

 _It is said that a Bai Ze's blessing is the most influential of all, for when a Bai Ze approves, kings will kneel before you._

* * *

Yuuya doesn't see the beast for another two weeks.

He makes it a habit to visit the peach tree every day when he has time: before court, after court, after dinner, before bed, his days off—any free time he has he spends under the peach tree. He wonders if his persistence is something that drives the beast away, or if the beast is ever here when he's busy, but Yuuya continues _hoping_. He doesn't understand why he's so enchanted, but. _But._

His efforts pay off eventually, when Yuuya thinks to stay inside for the day because the air is too hot, too unbearable, but he sees that flash of white under the tree again. He forgets the summer heat in his mad dash, grin plastered to his face, and he doesn't let the beast out of his sight for the whole way there. Yuuya doesn't dare to even _blink_.

"Please!" the first word out of his mouth is a plead, one that Yuuya says with all the intensity he can muster. The beast looks startled and steps back, but Yuuya tries again. " _Please_. Please, don't go."

It stares at him warily but doesn't move another step. Yuuya lets out a loud sigh of relief.

"I…" but now that he has the beast here, he doesn't know what he wants to say. Why is he chasing after it? Why is he so desperate to meet its gaze? There are a thousand things he could say in response—curiosity, enchantment, wonder, awe—but he finds the words stuck in his throat.

"I'm Yuuya," he tries for introductions instead. "Sakaki Yuuya, I'm the—"

"Crown Prince," the beast doesn't move its mouth but a voice fills his head. It's surprisingly humanlike, with a rough grate to its voice, deep and low in a vivid resonance of bass. The beast steps closer and lowers its head until its snout is just at Yuuya's eye level. "Sakaki Yuuya, prince of Zhong Bai, seventeen summers, next in line for the throne. Born to Sakaki Yuushou and Youko, the emperor and empress respectively."

"That's…" his name isn't common knowledge. "How did you—?"

For a moment, the image of the beast flickers, and Yuuya feels the beat stop in his chest. Not yet. This is too soon. Not yet, not yet, _not yet_ —

One blink for his tiring eyes, and the beast is gone.

In its place is a man, roughly the same height as him, perhaps a bit taller, with the whitest skin that shines like scales on his figure. The beast's horns sprout from his head, the beast's ears hang from face, and eyes of electric blue pierce into his frame.

It's the beast—in flesh.

"I…" Yuuya tries to speak, but there are no words to describe the majesty of the man in front of him. Even reduced to a human form, the beast radiates its commanding aura: heavy, intense, and demanding absolute respect. It feels as though it's meant to bring him to his knees.

"Unimpressive," is the first word he speaks, and Yuuya recognizes the voice as the same one the beast spoke with in his head. In two strides he has his porcelain white fingers on Yuuya's face, pressing and prodding with his eyes like daggers. "You can't be him."

"E—Excuse me?" he feels insulted somehow, but any hurt feelings he could possibly have are still blown away by the beast's human form.

"Sakaki Yuushou's child," more prodding. The man draws a line with his finger down Yuuya's jaw and then his neck, stopping at his collarbone. "No way."

He feels his face flush from the intimate attention. "I am too!" he pushes the man away with a huff, all enchanted feelings lost in the insults that falls so easily from the beast's mouth. "Sakaki Yuuya, son of Sakaki Yuushou! I'm going to succeed him on the throne once summer ends—"

"No, you're not," the man clicks his tongue in disappointment. "At this rate, you'll run the country into the ground. What a fu—hellish hassle."

"Just who are you anyway! Geez," Yuuya crosses his arms with a tint of childish temper. Well, when someone comes up and starts doubting him for no reason… he has every right to be angry.

"My name is Yuugo, Guardian of the Celestial Gardens, creation of Lei Gong, servant to one of the four great Heavenly Kings, Yu Huang," it all rolls off his tongue smoothly, like he's done this a million times before.

Yuuya finds that most of it passes over his head completely. "Um…?"

"Gods," Yuugo groans and just slowly massages his temples with his fingers. "I'm from Heaven and I'm a Bai Ze. Is that good enough?"

"Perfect."

Yuuya smiles.

Something in Yuugo's eyes flicker, the hint of recognition, the opaque blue that touches his cheeks: like blood, but not. Blood can't be blue because it's red.

"Did you want something?" Yuugo's eyes stray straight to the ground, that tiny bit of blue now almost gone from his stark white skin. Perhaps it's just a trick of the light, but Yuuya's _sure_ —

"What?"

"You asked me to stop. You chased me all this way and waited here the past few weeks for me," Yuugo's eyes go back up to meet his, and despite the questions that he asks, Yuuya feels as though he already knows.

Like this is some sort of test.

"I just... well..." but he doesn't know himself. He doesn't know at all. Enchantment, possibly, but that's not the entire story. Even so, Yuugo looks at him with knowing eyes, centuries of wisdom and born intelligence—he knows but he doesn't say. "What are you... doing here?"

Yuugo blinks, and then his eyes harden, his stance softens, a white hand coming up to run fingers through the grey fibers of the fur pelt wrapped around his shoulders. For a long moment, there is only the wind. He doesn't speak a word.

"I—It's fine if that's private," Yuuya tries to say, tries to get Yuugo to stop looking so downtrodden. They've only met just minutes ago but Yuuya doesn't want him to leave— _please don't_ —the palace is stifling and the court even more so and he doesn't—he doesn't have any friends.

Perhaps he wants Yuugo to stay because he wants companionship, wants someone not intermingled with court politics and country politics and hierarchy politics and any politics at all to speak to.

(He wants to be weak, even if for the smallest of moments.)

"No," Yuugo looks at him with the glossiest blue, light bouncing and reflecting off of his pupils as if to hide something behind shields. "It's fine."

There is a light in his eyes that Yuuya recognizes all too well.

"I am here to mourn."

* * *

 **End Notes**

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The next chapter will be... sometime in the future. Quite possibly mid-to-late May. It's already finished on my AO3 but I'm keeping FFN behind so I have time to fine tune and polish my stories. Gentle reminder that the version on AO3 has art to go to along with the story~

Reviews are very much appreciated ;u;


	3. 夏天

**Notes**

I said mid-to-late May, but I'm not too far past my deadline for this chapter at least OTL

* * *

Before Yuushou left this world, before the last smile he shared was one when they parted ways for bed, before Yuuya had cried and cried and cried for his father's lifeless body in the morning, clutching silk like lifelines, staining money with tears. Before Yuushou had told him to "smile" in the face of his odds, and before he could elaborate further, Yuuya had drifted.

The dream is the same every time: a throne in the spotlight, and Yuuya's inability to sit upon it. Rather, he tries—he reaches with his hands, weighed down by gold, by silk, by materialistic things that surely should teach him a lesson about the value of wealth, but they are not what prevent him from ever sitting upon that throne. Oh, he _thinks_ it is, he thinks that his own want for expense is sinful, is greedy, and the gods will smite him before he takes that golden chair.

But when the nobles crowd around him, when the guards stop him in his tracks, they whisper only one thing: _you don't belong there._ _You, who has sinned against the Heavens, are not fit to rule a country. You, who has tasted utopia, can no longer see reality. You, who has brought a creature of worth to its knees and broke their decree, you—this throne is not for you._

And Yuuya cries, _I have not! I have not!_ , clawing at his own guards as they push him away, as they take him out of the palace, as they pass by a garden that is vile and filled with thorns.

On those nights, his mother is by his side, running her fingers through the tresses of his hair, making no sound, no reassurances unless he asks for it. She knows as well as he that simple words like those are hollow, are only said in the moment and never more, but Yuuya will still ask, as if he is eight and a child again, crying tears not from his dream but from the thunder.

 _The rain is part of how life goes._

Are dreams, too, then?

His mother had smiled, pushed her fingers against his scalp and rubbed circles there, had not said a word until Yuuya had stopped shaking, stopped clutching the lapels of her sleeves in a vice grip as if she would disappear at any moment.

"Yes," she'd said, the moon high in the sky and her voice weary from sleep, but she never once reprimanded Yuuya's dreams (nightmares, visions—). "Dreams are said to show your own fears and growth. Maybe even your future."

"But I haven't done anything—"

"You haven't," she kissed him on the forehead with another smile. "Nothing is set in stone, Yuuya. As cheesy as it sounds, you pave your own road. Remember that."

And she had left, drifting like a ghost into the night, the flow of silks behind her. She was— _still is_ —an anomaly upon the palace, a commoner who rose to higher standing. Where his own teachers would have told him that fates were inborn, his mother believed otherwise, and she would laugh in the face of their decree, using herself as an example that they never could argue.

There are those born out of fate, and there are those born _outside_ of fate.

 _"My name is Yuugo, Guardian of the Celestial Gardens, creation of Lei Gong, servant to one of the four great Heavenly Kings, Yu Huang."_

Yuuya begins to wonder which one, exactly, he is.

* * *

"Would you like to come in for tea?" had been a simple request, an effort to get Yuugo to stay longer than his usual time, before the celestial being would break away from the garden and leave Yuuya back in his boring world of politics, untouched by the unearthly awe that carries Yuugo's every step (every stride, every strut—a wake of mist in his trail like Yuugo is a mountain that can never be conquered, resting high above the clouds where the summit would freeze all humans that came near).

Yuugo had blinked, his only show of his own surprise, but agreed nonetheless. Yuuya had smiled wide from ear to ear, the joy creeping upon his body until he could do nothing but take Yuugo's wrist in his hands and tug him in the direction of the palace. Yuugo had protested, saying something about being able to walk there himself, but never made a move to pull out of Yuuya's grip.

Telling the servants that they would be serving a celestial being would have caused panic and questions, so Yuuya takes Yuugo through the back door, steps hurried and excited but silent and cautious of anyone that came their way.

"We could just have tea outside, you know," Yuugo says, pressed against a wall as Yuuya leans his head around the corner and checks for anyone in the next pathway. "You could have the servants bring it over while I hid."

"Yeah, but," Yuuya gives a small tug for Yuugo to move as they race down the hallway, silks billowing behind them and giving life to Yuuya's laughter. When they reach his room, finally, Yuuya beams and gestures dramatically to the entrance. "A room is just for the two of us, right?"

Yuugo opens his mouth to say something, but stops, eyes looking down at the floor as his cheeks tint blue, but Yuuya only has a moment to confirm that before Yuugo covers half his face with his sleeve in an attempt to cough.

"R-Right," he agrees, coughing (clearing his throat?) a few more times before he shakes his head as if to reaffirm himself.

Yuuya's chambers are a combination of two rooms: a parlor area and a space with his actual bedroom, his bed built into the wall and covered by curtains. Yuuya leads Yuugo over to a seat in the middle of the parlor, at a small square table outlined in gold. The height of luxury.

Yuugo's frown goes unnoticed by Yuuya, who goes over to smaller table against the wall to pour the already-hot tea sitting on there. He had planned to have tea after going outside to the peach tree anyway, but Yuugo's presence is a definite welcome.

"So, I'm—"

"Yuuya," Yuugo says, gesturing to the other seat across from him. "Sit down?"

"Oh, right!" Yuuya hurriedly brings the tray of tea over and sets it down before taking his seat. He eagerly places Yuugo's cup on the table along with his own. "I made this tea myself."

"Did you?" Yuugo takes a sip out of courtesy and then blanches. "Wow, this tastes horrible."

"Hey!" Yuuya puffs his cheeks up, leaning over the table slightly as he stares at Yuugo intently in the eye. "I think it tastes _fine_."

"Have you actually tasted it?" Yuugo tries to keep his face straight, but it fails with how his brows scrunch up. "This tastes like sh—just bad."

Yuuya whines, lips drawn down in a pout and a frown, brows furrowed. "Just because I'm not an expert tea maker in whatever godly land you come from doesn't make my tea _that bad_."

Yuugo levels him with a _look_.

Yuuya takes a sip of his tea.

"So?"

"Okay, it's a _little_ bad."

Yuugo wears a smug look, but drinks the rest of the cup anyway, saying something about not wanting to waste food (but it comes out like "N-Not like I want to waste your work, either" except mumbled, that flush of blue tinting his cheeks again, and Yuuya starts to believe _that_ is his blood: blue and exotic, not anything like a human's, _never_ anything like a human's).

Yuuya still smiles, watching with a sort of satisfied contentment as this godly being—Guardian of the Celestial Gardens, creation of Lei Gong, servant to whoever and whatever and a lot of other titles that he can't care enough to remember right now—sits in his room and makes himself at home. This is how emperors rule, right, spending mornings with beings that are higher than man, that no common peasant should ever be able to meet.

The tea is finished between them, little sweet and small snacks lying on the table instead, pastel greens and pinks, little balls of dough with paste inside. He didn't used to like them because they were too sweet, like a mass of sugar sliding down his throat, but in the presence of Yuugo's wonder and genuine enjoyment, he finds that he does.

A laugh escapes him, then, more like a fit of snickers that has the beast confused, brows scrunched together in a "Hey! I-It's not funny! What are you laughing at?!"

"You're really cute," he says in response, between giggling breaths and escaping laughter, the creases at the corner of his eyes. For a moment, in _this_ moment, Yuuya smiles—not a plastic smile, not a smile forced by the mask he wears—

Yuugo inhales sharply, the breath leaving his lungs. Yuuya thinks for a long minute that he's crossed a line, maybe said something he shouldn't have, but Yuugo doesn't say a word.

He doesn't need to, Yuuya realizes later, when he's lying in bed and watching the moon through his window, the curtains around him parted for a last glimpse at the outside world. The moon is bright, calm, serene, a water that soothes his mental aches and washes over all his old wounds. The moon—like Yuugo—is something that is far beyond his reach, a being that exists to be admired and not touched, never to be close to, never to satisfy.

But in that moment, Yuugo had smiled, blue lips and blue veins, white fangs and white skin: a sky covered with clouds, an eternally white, snowy garden that freezes all the movement in his body. Yuuya had let himself go, had faltered and let the cup drop from his hands, staining red-hot tea over his hanfu and burning the skin under. He wishes he could say the tea shocked him back to reality, to the walls he had put up only a season ago to deal with the loss of his father, to the rigid facade of happiness he has tried his hardest to keep.

The tea stain is still on the floor, Yuuya reluctant to clean it up, reluctant to get rid of the trace of existence that Yuugo had appeared in his life (had _smiled_ at him, all sharp edges and graceful elegance and _nothing at all_ like pity). It smells like chrysanthemum leaves, ground and dried, pushed back into water again to regain the life it once had. It was something beautiful, and even in death, even in a pseudo-second-life, it creates tea from the ashes of its remains, warm and soothing.

A desire to live but a desire to rest. Yuuya remembers how his father would have wanted him to do the same: to smile, to laugh in the face of his demons, to help those who cannot to do the same. Life isn't supposed to be fleeting, gloomy—

Yuugo had smiled, sapphire blue and gentle cobalt, the faintest dusting of aquamarine on his cheeks. He had _smiled_ , and Yuuya had stopped.

Yuuya had stopped because he had forgotten what a genuine smile looked like, so foreign on the face of someone even more otherworldly.

( _Love_?)

"Y-Yeah, sure," Yuugo had said, turning his eyes down and hiding his smile behind his sleeve, the pattern of leaves and flowers on the silk almost like a forest for him to retreat to. "You also… I-I mean… you too."

Yuuya falls into summer's embrace; he falls into a dreamless sleep accompanied only by the chirping crickets and the soft moonlight, the fading presence of the gods on his shoulder.

* * *

Afternoons, they come and go. Yuuya waits every day by the peach tree, hoping to catch a glimpse of Yuugo, hoping to catch a glimpse of a life he can't have, with a being he can't tether. Sometimes Yuugo appears at his side, and they spend the afternoon with the small pastries Yuuya has brought: deep-fried sesame balls and freshly baked custard tarts, crumbs spilling onto their hanfu that Yuuya laughs at when Yuugo goes on about which goddess or mythical being had sewn his clothing.

 _It's precious, you know!_ and _They're going to_ kill _me_ and _By the Goddess, I swear if this oil doesn't come off—_

"But then why do you keep eating them if you keep spilling crumbs all over? I've never even met such a clumsy being of the gods," Yuuya teases, a wide grin on his lips, leaning over the picnic basket to help Yuugo sweep the crumbs off his hanfu.

"Th-That's because…!" Yuugo starts, stumbling over his words, the blue rushing to his face, coloring his white skin. He coughs into his hands, eyes darting away. "Y-You go through the trouble to bring them… n-not like I don't like them or anything! I mean! Y-You…!"

Yuuya laughs, letting his body weight fall forward to land softly on Yuugo's lap, staring at the sky from his vantage on the very body created by the gods.

"I-It's free food, okay," Yuugo crosses his arms with a huff, turning his chin upwards and trying his hardest not to look down on Yuuya laying his head in his lap.

"Do you even _need_ to eat?"

"Shut up."

The days pass by quickly, afternoons spent in wonder and awe, and nights wishing for the next afternoon to come sooner.

Yuuya finds doesn't care about politics—he doesn't _care_ about his court or his throne, his people or his officials—if Yuugo comes every day to visit, if he can spend the rest of his life like this, bound in the existence of the heavens itself, then what should it matter if his country needs him? What should it matter, when the only person who Yuuya could ever need is Yuugo?

Yuugo, who smiles at him and doesn't berate him. Yuugo, who absently runs his hands through Yuuya's hair when they're watching the clouds together, who then snaps away when he realizes what he's doing, to Yuuya's laughter and teasing. Yuugo, who has his heart on his sleeve, the blue flush of his cheeks something that Yuuya all too happily basks in the light of.

Is it Yuugo, or is it his attention?

(Or perhaps it is Yuuya, who hides his feelings and intentions behind the hardiest metal, plastering onto his face a mask that will never leave. He doesn't care, he tries to say, as if he isn't taunted by the dreams of denial and rejection, dreams of being outcast into a world he doesn't know, hated by people he does.

 _He doesn't care_ , he _wants_ to say, because it's easier, because he sees how Yuugo lingers his eyes on his figure, an affection that shouldn't be there that is ever-present in his blue eyes: the depths of the ocean, come to swallow him whole and drag him down to the undertow, where his screams will never be heard in the vacuum of space.)

* * *

If only.

* * *

Yuugo says something one day (asks something one day)—voice loud and clear.

It's like watching a flower bloom from a mere seed to wonderful petals that face the sun, tinted blue-gold in a copy of the sky, a plant that is determined to become as beautiful as the world up above it, where the heavens that hold more than just stars rest. It is long, subtle, roots sprouting underground to grab a place on the earth, a stem that breaks from a perfect shell, the desire and need to reach for the sky. It comes in years, in rain, in survival through the seasons that will bear down on it, push it back into its shell.

Yuugo has no need to be that flower, has no need to reach for the Heavens when he is _from_ the Heavens, from the playground of the gods up above (even if he, he says, a little bit of bitterness in his voice, a little bit of sadness— _even if he himself is a toy of the gods_ but Yuuya doesn't know what that means). But his presence enough is to be that flower, be the life that sprouts from soil in the way he moves and talks. The sunlight catches his skin, porcelain white and shining, soft like flower petals, and Yuuya has to step back and admire.

(Ironic, then, isn't it, when Yuugo's eyes are like harsh blizzards, like icicles that will tear into his heart and expose him whole for the rotten soul he is, must be, could be, can be. In the summer heat, in the summer haze, in an endless time loop of Yuuya's red eyes blinded by Yuugo's blue, he feels the sting of a celestial being, feels the sting of his dreams (nightmares) when his officials deny him of his throne.)

Yuuya has to remember, above all else, that Yuugo is not a human even as he looks like one (when his fur fades into skin, when his four legs become two). He is a Bai Ze, the being above emperors, the beings that _make_ emperors.

But—

"You aren't fit to take the throne," Yuugo says, brows furrowed, as if he himself could not understand why this was so. "You aren't even _close_ to being fit. What happened? Why is this?"

And Yuuya wants to laugh, wants to cry, wants to tell Yuugo all about the depression that makes him smaller, smaller, _smaller_ by the day. He wants to tell this high celestial being that humans are weak and fragile and that he is coming apart at the seams, and even an anomaly such as Yuugo is enough tandem in his life to at least give him some hope for the future. He wants to tell Yuugo about court, about the sneers from the officials, the scheming politicians, about his dreams of waking up on his coronation and being denied the very thing he was born for.

But this is unfair, the injustice of it all. Yuuya had seen utopia once, had let it grow from his bones like vines and obscure his vision, had seen the world in perfect color and harmony, and all the potential it could ever hold. He had seen it—he had _grasped_ it!—

The vines are dead, now. His bones are rotting. His ideals are gone, buried in the dirt beneath their feet, buried with the one thousand terracotta soldiers guarding his father's body.

"I don't know," he says, half-lying, half-not. "I'm fit, I'm sure of it. I try so hard, I study so much—"

"H-Hey!" Yuugo moves closer, hands hovering over Yuuya's face, as if unsure on how to proceed when Yuuya looks on the verge of crying. "I-I don't mean this in a mean way…. don't cry okay? Y-You can't cry! You'll make me cry!"

"Th-That's not possible," Yuuya hiccups, trying to laugh and cry at the same time as he pulls his sleeves up to wipe his tears. "That's almost… pathetic!"

"I'm not the one crying!" Yuugo says, puffing his cheeks out as he moves a tiny bit closer, and frantically tries to wipe Yuuya's tears too, brushing aside Yuuya's own sleeves. "Geeze."

"H-Hey, you're starting to shake, too—"

"Th-This is your fault!"

Yuuya laughs, a loud, resounding note that drops into a choked sob, the noises spilling from his mouth a mixture between it all. He inhales, exhales, tries his best to regain his composure but it is like a dam has broke, the water that is his emotions flooding from his being, drowning every part of him until he can't breathe. He tries to stop, he tries his hardest to not break down, but.

Yuugo is patient, so much more patient than Yuuya can ever give him credit for. He doesn't say much else as Yuuya tells him his troubles, his dreams, his nightmares, all of his problems falling out of his mouth like Yuugo is meant to help him, to heal his mind. Perhaps some part of him wishes that were so, that Yuugo could put his soft white fingers to his head and mutter enough words to heal the scars on his mind and he'd be _fixed_.

Yuuya doesn't realize how much his father's death had hit him. He don't realize it because his mother had done all the crying for him, and the officials would have surely seen it as a sign of weakness.

Court politics are harsh, never meant for a boy who is only seventeen, never meant for a boy who has never seen the world outside of his palace walls.

He doesn't know how long he cries for, and maybe it's best if he doesn't, but at the end of it Yuugo takes his face in his hands, brings him close enough so that the two of them can touch foreheads. Yuugo's own eyes seem wet and watery, but he hasn't cried like Yuuya has, just felt the lingering effects of his sadness and depression wash over him like the ocean washes gently over the sand.

"Do you want to be emperor, Yuuya?" he asks, hushed voice and small whispers, as if the answer were only a secret to be whispered between them. His fingers idly caress the skin of Yuuya's jaw, his eyes boring into red, and Yuuya wonders if the sudden _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart is from Yuugo's proximity or his offer.

He isn't sure which one he wants to admit.

But—"Yes," the word escapes him like a desperate plea, a plea that has long since been known in his heart: a plea for love, for attention, for the very revelry he bestows upon Yuugo's every step. He had wished (and he continues to wish) that someone would do the same for him.

And being emperor? Being emperor just guarantees that, doesn't it?

How selfish he must look to this being of the gods, this mythical creature that creates and controls emperors, kings… _him_.

"Yes," Yuuya says again, with more conviction, with more _heart_ , with a rush of feeling that courses through his body. He reaches up and grabs Yuugo's wrist, lock him in his hold, because Yuuya is _desperate_ and _pleading_ , and Yuugo is the one source of salvation that he will not let go. Not now, not ever.

Something in Yuugo's eyes spark, then, like the very electricity his eyes embody.

Yuuya is a lightning rod and Yuugo is the thunder, and Yuuya will absorb every single drop of power from this celestial beast. He can make him emperor, and he—

Yuugo's eyes soften, his hands shaking loose Yuuya's grip from his wrists until he can take his fingers and palms in his.

"I know," he says, and then looks at the palace. Red and gold and white and brown, painted like a beacon of paradise, a heaven only those worthy enough (rich enough) shall know. His eyes don't look at the decor, the statues, the general imposing structure that is the royalty's city within a city. His eyes travel elsewhere, somewhere only he can reach (somewhere only he can see).

"Yuugo?"

"I know," he repeats, a whisper this time, a gentle smile on his mouth. His eyes turn back to Yuuya, so full of _warmth_ , so full of _love_ —"I'll help you."

Yuuya wonders then if even gods can be controlled.

* * *

It begins like this—

Afternoons are spent no longer under the peach tree, dozing with the summer heat and haze, blearily looking through the gaps of the leaves at the sky above. Yuugo arrives with a pinpoint precision, hardened eyes and determined posture, has Yuuya tell him how his days go in court, how his studies go with his tutors, what he has done since their last meeting.

It begins like a sudden shift in the wind, a rising tidal wave that Yuuya struggles desperately to adapt to. Here in front of him is not _Yuugo_ , not the person he has known with soft smiles and flushing cheeks, embarrassed noises that claw out of his throat when Yuuya teases him endlessly for his quick reactions. Here is a heavenly servant, _a celestial being_ , radiating power and influence through the sheer force of his words alone.

Here is the creature that makes kings, crowns emperors, guides those who are wise and those who are not. Here is the creature that can call forth a rainstorm with naught but a word and a gesture, can weave the very fabric of life with his porcelain white hands and clawed fingernails. Here is a creature that can rip an entire kingdom to shreds.

Here is a creature—here is _Yuugo_ —who carries himself with a grace unmatched by any other living creature, the poised posture of a crane.

The poised posture of a _beast_.

"Court politics are always the same no matter where you go," he says, pacing the length of Yuuya's room with a steady tempo, the translucent trail of his hanfu scraping the floor behind him. "Everyone always wants to both appease you and oppose you. Of course, subtly. Their noble code doesn't allow them to do so otherwise."

"But these are officials who have studied and tested," Yuuya says, drumming his fingers on the hard bamboo of his desk, eyes focused on the quiet outdoors, on the peach tree where they used to spend their days. He almost wishes they could go back to them, spend their afternoon eating and talking and enjoying each other's company… _almost_. "They took an exam to get in."

"Which means they're more intelligent," Yuugo deflects with a dismissive wave of his hand. "They know better how to get under your skin, and how to tug at your heartstrings. At least the nobles are all a bag of predictable di… _people_."

Yuuya snorts, raises an amused eyebrow at Yuugo's constant correcting of his own vocabulary. "Yuugo."

"What?" and here, the other Yuugo returns, the one who blushes blue and hides his face behind his sleeves, all semblance of importance and power gone within an instant. "Y-You know what I mean! I'm trying, okay? And Rin always hates it when—"

"—Rin?" Yuuya feels his entire mind blank right at the name. It's the first time Yuugo has ever mentioned anyone else that isn't a god he serves (or those that he knows).

Yuugo pales, his jaw going slack, and then immediately waves his hands around, his sleeves obscuring his vision. "F-Forget I said that! A-Anyway, back to the—"

"But who is _Rin_?" Yuuya asks again, leans forward on the table with his body weight and stares Yuugo right in the eyes. Any information about this celestial beast, _any at all_ —Yuuya will take it. He wants to learn more, to know more.

(Yuugo had said once, during one of their picnics, that he only had the rest of the summer to stay before he would be called back up to serve. He had hesitated, had looked at the sky so forlorn and sad that Yuuya didn't want to press further. Whatever made his eyes water, whatever made Yuugo look like he was about to _cry_ —Yuuya didn't want to know what made a celestial being _cry_ at going home.

 _Home_ , Yuuya tests the word on his tongue later, when he's alone. _Home_ , Yuugo had said, because the palace wasn't _his_.

Someday he will have to go _home_.)

Yuugo goes silent, the hesitance in his frame, the uncertainty that plagues his twitching fingers, the longing that Yuugo gives to the lake outside.

"Rin…"

In his voice there are a thousand words he wants to say, each one of them powerful, sonorous, _waiting_... waiting to be spilled unto the world but Yuugo does not talk further. There hangs a heavy silence in the echo of that name— _Rin_ —whispered with a reverence that Yuuya has never heard him use before, not even to his creator, not even to his god. Yuugo walks over to the window, lets his fingers and claws curl around the geometric patterns that make his windowsill, eyes staring long and hard at the body of water outside.

"Rin is… she's…" it's a whisper, almost like a prayer, and Yuuya doesn't try to press it but it burns; the curiosity sits in his heart and sparks a million candles in the depths, gently lulling and lulling until everything is burning, burning bright, burning forever. "I haven't seen her in years… she's been alone since her brother died, and, I… she went missing last year, she's _gone_ , and Rin doesn't…"

A pause, Yuugo's grip on the windowsill tightening with his strained breath.

"She's always been there for me, she's always been so patient with me," Yuugo goes on, a rush of words flowing from his mouth as if he couldn't _wait_ to tell Yuuya all about her, speaking in the same hushed reverence that he reserved only when he spoke to Yuuya. "She means the _world_ , and I…"

Yuuya feels a tug at his chest, a harsh pull of his heartstrings that has him gasping for breath. It _burns_.

But is it his curiosity that burns, or is it his ugly jealousy (even if he already knows the answer and just refuses to admit it)—

It is a different kind of burning when Yuugo takes his hands, Yuuya heaving with a startled gasp, his breath uneven and shaky. Yuugo's hands are porcelain white like fine china, not human in the slightest, not like the burning red flush on his cheeks and the loud drum of his heart in his ears. Yuugo's blood is blue, different, his skin heats up in dazzling cyan and splotches of cobalt, imperfect asymmetry within perfect celestial skin.

Yuuya is reminded that he is human, that the being in front of him is _different_ and _not_ , and the sheer power in his eyes could bring mortals to their knees.

(Brings Yuuya to his knees.)

"I miss her," he says, clawed white hands tangled about in Yuuya's tanned skin and fingers. "I lost her, Yuuya, and I… I can't bear to lose _you_ , either."

Yuuya wants to say something, a word of reassurance, but the only thing that comes out is a sigh of relief and happiness, the ugly feeling fading in his chest.

Yuugo loves him as much as he loves Rin and that is—that brings such a warmth to Yuuya's body, such a relief.

Yuuya can only imagine a being as great a beauty as the Bai Ze in front of him, electric blue shining and shining in the thoughts of someone (not him, not him) else.

And there is silence (silence) when Yuugo stops in the middle of his story, realizing he's said too much. Too much for a mortal.

(It is a different kind of burning when Yuugo takes his cheeks and presses their foreheads together but there is that look in his eyes—sad, sorrow, forlorn—as he looks at Yuuya. Too much for a mere _mortal_.)

* * *

( _If only he could dance in the skin of the immortals, reach for a heaven that he can touch, sing the songs of the stars up above. If only he could be like him, if only he wasn't mortal—_ )

* * *

"Would you like to do something else today?" had been a simple question, an effort to take Yuugo's mind off of his hurried absence the other day, before they could both descend into the messy world of politics and corruption, discussing things like _how to run a country_ and _how to maintain court_ when Yuuya is only seventeen and already has to age so much quicker than his brain can allow.

Yuugo is like an open book, the way he almost immediately wants to say _yes_ in the spark of light in his eyes, the pitch of his body forward just the tiniest bit. "No," he says instead, turning his head to look at the back door to the palace, his entrance and exit to the confines within. "We should keep trying to—"

"Come on," Yuuya grins instead and takes his hand in his, giving a firm tug that has Yuugo stumbling after him, his half-hearted complaints and protests failing to reach the laughter in Yuuya's voice, the spring in his step. The days have gone by at a stagnant pace, the wonder and awe that Yuugo had first commanded all but fading with time. Yuuya doesn't want that; Yuuya wants to look forward to meeting Yuugo every afternoon, feel his skin beneath his, the shy brush of his lips against his face.

For some reason he can't remember, Yuuya drags him all the way across the palace to the archives, uncaring of the people or officials that he stumbles upon along the way, looking with bewilderment as Yuugo passes with his snow white skin and ocean blue cheeks, the weave of his hanfu anything but less than expensive. Yuuya drags him into the archives with the shelves and rows of books, his purpose forgotten, but the pure childlike adrenaline that had flowed through his body had been worth it.

The spark in Yuugo's eyes, too—it had been worth it.

"Y-Yuuya… haaah," Yuugo puts his hands on his knees and leans forward to catch his breath, the fur mantle around his shoulders almost sliding off. Yuuya laughs and walks over to fix it for him, the run nothing more than a cinch for him, but it's like Yuugo has never ran before in his life.

Perhaps not, at least, in his human form.

"Welcome to the archives!" Yuuya says without letting him get a word in, the grin big on his face and his hands flung wide. His laughter bounces off the walls and echoes throughout the building, his voice traveling much farther than he had thought it could. "There's nothing here but… well… a lot of books! And no one really ever comes by."

Yuugo, however, isn't looking at him. His gaze drifts to the walls, to the books, and for a minute he think he's just appraising the collection, but then the light disappears from his eyes and he shoves a hand up to Yuuya's face to shush him.

"What is—"

"Do you hear that?" he asks, voice low and light, moving with tiny steps towards a bookcase near the wall.

Yuuya doesn't hear anything, but he indulges Yuuya with a frown, and strains his ears to listen. There is nothing but the pressing silence of the books all around him, and the sound of water dripping somewhere in the vicinity, though muffled and small.

"The water?" he asks, wondering if that's what's bothering him. "The ceiling has always had a problem with—"

"No," Yuugo looks shaken, appalled, and Yuuya gently takes his hands in his again and squeezes them tightly. Yuugo's eyes soften enough that his heart can stop beating so quickly, and he plants a quick peck to the top of Yuuya's forehead. For Yuuya or for himself, he doesn't know. "It's not—It's…"

This time, he leads, gently tugging at Yuuya's wrist as he makes for the farthest wall of the archive, steps slow and calculated. Yuuya doesn't know what it is that makes Yuugo so jumpy, so _uncertain_ , and part of him doesn't want to find out. But Yuuya can't tug him away, and he can't leave him here, and that other part of him actually feels the adrenaline start pumping loud in his ears, drowning out all other sound but Yuuya's breath and his.

Synchronized.

"It's here," Yuugo says so suddenly that it startles Yuuya, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight, trying to catch a quick breath that he forgot to inhale. "It's _somewhere_ here, that sound… and it's…"

Yuugo reaches a tentative hand toward the bookcase and runs his fingers along their paper spines, searching for something Yuuya can't quite understand.

"Yuugo?" he asks quietly, afraid to disturb him. "What is it?"

"There's… a really strong presence here," he replies, letting go of Yuuya's hand to step closer to the bookcase. "It's _suffocating_ , like I can't breathe, and…"

Yuugo's claws nick a particular chip in the bookcase, and there's a silent click, so silent that Yuuya has to stop breathing just to hear it, and then the wood in front of them—a solid bookcase that Yuugo had _touched_ and scratched with his fingers—promptly _disappears out of existence_.

The wide expanse of a cave greets them.

"I knew it," Yuugo says, not looking the least bit surprised as he steps forward toward the entrance. "It had been bothering me all summer, this magic that had been pricking at me and I couldn't identify it because we were on the other side of the palace. You said no one comes by here, right?"

"A-As far as I know, only the officials stick around for a little while," Yuuya stutters, jaw still slack at the passageway in front of him. "And even then… th-they're gone really soon afterwards."

"It's not them," Yuugo reassures, and begins his walk into the mouth of the cave without a look back. "Magic this powerful can't be casted by a human, much less an official who has his entire day setup to be as busy as possible. And this… whoever did this wasn't trying to hide it, just… just tried to keep whatever is in here from getting out. Like a cage to trap an animal, I guess."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Yuuya asks, following after Yuugo as the bookcase reappears behind them. "What if we release something dangerous?"

"I can take care of it."

The cave stretches far into the unknown, twisting and turning with every few feet, made of smoothened stone and guided by floating lights reflected in the crystal stalagmites that dot their path. Yuuya is almost inclined to believe that it's long enough to stretch outside of the palace. The archives are, after all, situated right next to the very wall that keeps outsiders and those unworthy at bay.

He feels something turn in his stomach, the very thought of finding out what's at the end of the cave making his stomach churn.

Yuugo says he'll take care of it, but—

Yuuya bumps straight into Yuugo's still back, an apology on the edge of his tongue that's washed away with the _horror_ in Yuugo's eyes. His sapphires are clouded, unpolished, tinted with the blackest of fears and disbelief.

"Yuugo—?"

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ," he's cursing now, completely ignoring Yuuya as his gaze sweeps the room and lands immediately on the pool of water in the cove, the flash of green grass dotting the edge like a semblance of a river bank. He stops swearing, stops grounding out insults and instead falls to his knees with his fingers buried in his hair, electric sparks crackling from his white fingertips. "Fuck."

"Yuugo!" Yuuya runs over and kneels down to support him, but Yuugo pushes him away.

"Yuuya, you don't understand—" Yuugo is hysterical, eyes wide with barely suppressed despair. "Yuuya, she isn't harmful, not at all, and—"

Yuuya tears his eyes from Yuugo's panicked and horrified form to the pool of water across from them, glowing an ethereal cyan hue that water isn't supposed to glow.

And then—

A splash of water, and Yuuya almost falls down in his shock.

The glow is not from the water itself, he realizes, as he watches a head of seafoam green hair rise from the depths, framed by sparkling pink jewelry and pastel-colored seashells. It is a woman, with skin that glows and shines, patches of emerald scales along her arms, and—fins?

 _Fins_.

Mint green and pink seashells and amber eyes that shine like the sun, hands that bring back to life the driest of plants, and even insects are caught in her gaze. As she pulls herself out of the water, Yuuya watches her skin mold into more and more scales, until there is nothing but a blanket covering on her legs—on her _tail_.

"Yuugo," her voice echoes through the cave, hopeful, yet sorrowful, as she turns her eyes to the ground in shame. It is rich, melodious, a beautiful note even in her despair, a tune that rings out and sooths the shocks in Yuugo's frame, flattens the bursts of electricity from his fingers. "Yuugo, is that—"

Yuuya suddenly remembers with dread what Yuugo had said when they first entered this cave.

 _Like a cage to trap an animal_.

" _Rin_!"

* * *

 **Notes**

Thank you so much for sticking with me! I'm always so happy to get more emails about people subscribing to my story aaa;; You all flatter me so much, thank you!

Please leave a review or a comment! It's really greatly appreciated~


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